Prague - Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski Friday called for patience before US president-elect Barack Obama makes up his mind on the fate of US missile defence plans in Eastern Europe. Speaking to reporters in Prague, Sikorski said Obama told him he wants to make sure the system works. The minister would not say what that could mean for project's future.
"We should patiently wait until the new administration is formed and until they make up their mind," Sikorski said.
The United States would like to set up bases for a European arm of its missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, ex- Soviet satellites that are members of NATO and the European Union.
Speaking after meeting his Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg, Sikorski said Warsaw and Prague continue to support the US project, the future of which under Obama's new administration remains unclear.
Sikorski said negotiations in Warsaw on minor missile defence agreements have not signaled any shift since this month's US presidential election.
"We are picking up no signs whatsoever on the American side of any change of heart or any change of schedule," he said.
The fate of the project is also in hands of the Czech Republic's parliament, which is required to ratify the related bilateral deals.
Sikorski said recently that the Polish silo for the system's interceptor missiles would be useless without a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.
Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's center-right government so far lacks enough votes to clear the pacts through parliament's lower house, which is likely to resume debating them later in November.
Topolanek wants the final vote postponed until after Obama's January 20 inauguration.
Ratification in Poland is seen as less challenging but Warsaw has yet to complete talks with Washington on several agreements accompanying the main diplomatic accord.
The Bush administration says it wants its European missile shield bases to begin protecting the US and most of Europe from potential Iranian long-range ballistic missiles in about five years.
Russia has fiercely opposed the project, calling it a threat to its own security, and has repeatedly threatened to target missiles at the US bases in its former satellites.
